Various water treatment systems and methods have traditionally been developed for purifying natural and polluted water sources to obtain purified water, which is suitable for human and/or animal consumption. In addition, ultra pure water is in high demand from the semiconductor and pharmaceutical industry. The production of ultra pure water demands more specialized filters and chemical treatment of the water source. A number of techniques are used, such as membrane filtration, ion exchangers, sub micron particle filters or nano-filters, ultraviolet light and ozone treatment. The produced water is extremely pure and contains no to very low concentrations of salts, organic components, dissolved gases such as oxygen, suspended solids, and microorganisms such as viruses and bacteria. However, because of factors such as the continuing miniaturization in the semiconductor industry, the specifications for ultra pure water become increasingly stricter.
Traditionally, water is purified or treated through a variety of available water treatment devices designed both for communal and for point-of-use applications, e. g. based on the following technologies: activated carbon for organic removal: ultraviolet light disinfection: ion exchange for hardness removal (water softening), and membrane desalination such as reverse osmosis (RO) or nanofiltration (NF). However, nanofiltration is relatively new in the field of water treatment technology. An NF membrane produces soft water by retaining the hardness creating divalent ions present in water. An NF membrane allows a high percentage of monovalent ions such as sodium and chloride to pass through, while it retains a high percentage of the divalent ions. It is the monovalent ions that create osmotic pressure that requires the moderate to high pressures necessary to pump water through an RO membrane. Therefore, nanofilter membranes require much less pressure to pump water across the membrane because hydraulic driving force does not have to overcome the effect of osmotic pressure derived from monovalent ions. Generally speaking, RO membranes used for residential and commercial water treatment applications remove all dissolved solids by approximately 98%. while nanofilter membranes remove divalent ions (hardness components: calcium and magnesium) by approximately 90% and monovalent ions (sodium chloride) by approximately 50%.
Desalination devices that use membrane elements (for example: RO or NF) always create two streams of water as the water exits the element: desalinated product water (which has passed through the membrane), and a waste brine (that has flowed across the membrane surface). This waste brine stream is necessary to flush salts and minerals away from the membrane to prevent them from accumulating and fouling the membrane surface. If a buildup of salts and minerals in the feed-water to a membrane occurs continuously, dissolved substances can precipitate and form a solid film, fouling the surface of the membrane. In addition, colloidal and particulate contaminants can also adhere to the membrane surface and cause fouling. With many water-borne contaminants, if a membrane becomes irreversibly scaled, or fouled, it cannot be cleaned and must be replaced. This characteristic of membrane processes poses a significant problem in reducing waste effluent especially in point of use (POU) water treatment systems that are typically compact and built as economically as possible.
Ion exchange devices are also used to soften so called “hard water”. The problem with ion exchange water softening systems is that they remove the hardness components of water (calcium and magnesium ions) by exchanging them for sodium ions in order to create what is called “soft water”. When regeneration of the ion exchange media takes place, a concentrated water stream of sodium, chloride, calcium and magnesium ions goes into the sewer system creating an environmental waste disposal problem. An example of a water purification system of such type is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,741,416 for “water purification system having plural pairs of filters and an ozone contact chamber”, disclosing a water purification system that is effective to oxidize organic contaminants and to destroy most of the bacteria, viruses, and other microbes in such water stream. Systems involving dialysis membranes that are selective for monovalent cations have also been disclosed in WO 2004/099088.
There is thus a continuing need for water purification systems for treatment of water that is or may be contaminated with chemical, biological and/or radiological contaminants both for normal household purposes as well as for advanced research, industrial and pharmaceutical purposes.
Since contamination or threats of contamination of water are frequently of a highly local character, e.g. on a ship or a in remote village or a camp, there is a need for a fixed or portable water purification system that can be rapidly and easily deployed at a location of actual or potential contamination. Of particular relevance is a system that can effectively remove contaminants from an actually or potentially contaminated water supply, such as sea water, to produce treated water that is suitable for human consumption.
Since the discovery of the aquaporin water transport proteins, which are distinguished by their ability to selectively transport H2O molecules across biological membranes, there has been a certain interest in devising an artificial water membrane incorporating these proteins, cf. US Patent Application No. 20040049230 “Biomimetic membranes” which aims to describe how water transport proteins are embedded in a membrane to enable water purification. The preferred form described has the form of a conventional filter disk. To fabricate such a disk, a 5 nm thick monolayer of synthetic triblock copolymer and protein is deposited on the surface of a 25 mm commercial ultrafiltration disk using a Langmuir-Blodgett trough. The monolayer on the disk is then cross-linked using UV light to the polymer to increase its durability. The device may be assayed by fitting it in a chamber that forces pressurized source water across the membrane. However, there is no guidance as to how one should select a synthetic triblock copolymer nor is there any data in support of the actual function of the embedded aquaporin.
It has been suggested that a water purification technology could be created by expressing the aquaporin protein into lipid bilayer vesicles and cast these membranes on porous supports, cf. James R. Swartz, home page.
The invention primarily aims at developing an industrial water filtration membrane and device comprising aquaporins incorporated into a membrane capable of purifying water with the highest purity, e.g. 100%. No techniques or filters known today can perform this task.